What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directionsfor submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

A First-page Checklist

It begins connecting the reader with the protagonist

Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.

What happens is dramatized in an immediate scene with action and description plus, if it works, dialogue.

What happens moves the story forward.

What happens has consequences for the protagonist.

The protagonist desires something.

The protagonist does something.

There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.

It happens in the NOW of the story.

Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.

Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.

What happens raises a story question—what happens next? or why did that happen?

Carolyn sends a first chapter of Bellinger Beauty. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Images of my husband’s dead body flooded my mind as I drove down Placida Road that Florida morning on my way to meet Howard Bellinger,

Throat tight and tears burning in my eyes, I pulled to the side of the road. Shockwaves tore through me as if I’d just received the news.

Two campers found Brett in the woods not far from here. The police had given up looking for his killer. I hadn’t.

A few quick glances out my window showed me Flamingo Mist looked pretty much the same, For every stucco palace with a tile roof, swimming pool and two-acre plot, dozens of trailer parks and cracker box houses sprouted like yard mushrooms after the summer rains. For some reason, the scenery calmed me and I drove back onto the road.

Flamingo Boulevard loomed ahead. I parked at the Elk's Lodge next to a sign listing Square Five and Lulu's Crew, the bands that would be playing for the dinner dances that week. When I stepped inside the two-story stucco building, the smell of fried chicken and French fries reminded me I hadn’t eaten breakfast.

The leather-faced man behind the desk stared at my business card before he stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans. “How can I help you Miss Gale or should I call you Zoe?”

Good stuff here, I like the descriptions that give values to what we’re seeing, the voice, and a good story question. Well, it seems like the story question is who murdered her husband. It may still be, but that’s not clear in the chapter that follows, where it turns out that she’s a private investigator being hired to look for a missing college student. Suggestion to Carolyn: let the reader know on page one that she’s a PI. And, if the husband’s death is not the point of the story, then you might want to consider starting later when the current case is begun and if there are any consequences to Zoe for taking the case, etc. Nice work.

I’m only a proof and a couple of weeks away from publishing Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling, a sorta-new writing craft book.

My original book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells, is now out of print. I’ve gone through it to polish the content, reorganized it completely, and added new content and examples. It still feels good to me, and it seems I’m in good company: a couple of quotes from Amazon reviewers on the original about what's in my book(s):

“This is one of the outstanding 'how-to' books about writing. I keep it right beside two other favorites, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Dave King and Renni Browne and On Writing by Stephen King.”

By going from 8.5” by 11” to a 5.5” by 8.5” trade paperback, the new size lowers the price—$16.99 versus $21.95—and may make it more convenient for writers to have in their bookshelves. At 320 pages, it should look something like the 3D image at the bottom of this post.

The change in print format also enabled conversion to ebooks, too, so there will be a Kindle edition published at the same time. Maybe an epub too, but I’m focused on Kindle for now.

By the way, did you know that you can get a free Kindle reader for a PC or a Mac that enables you to read a Kindle book on your computer? Same goes for epub (Nook) ebooks, too, with Adobe Digital Editions.

New title? I’m hoping that a more benefit-oriented title will attract more readers.

New cover? I felt the original wasn’t all that good and needed refreshing.

And I’m hoping the new ebook formats will also reach more readers.

Want to receive a free Kindle ebook in return for a review?

On Amazon, the new version won’t be able to bring to its pages all the amazingly positive reviews of the original. While it can point to the old FtQ page, it would be good to have fresh reviews—if, of course, they’re positive. But that’s the chance all authors take.

If you want a free beta Kindle version to read for review purposes, please email me. I’ll let you know when the book is officially published and has a page on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

This is the last post of content from my of my book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells. I hope you’ve enjoyed them and occasionally found something useful. And I hope you’ll buy the dang thing one of these days. Here is a second word processor tip, “Use the comment feature for better storytelling.”

Word’s Comment feature is a hugely useful tool. You can insert an invisible note for yourself or someone else, such as an editor. When I was in an e-mail critique group, we used comments in our critiques along with line editing with Track Changes turned on. WordPerfect also offers a Comment tool.

I sometimes create a skeletal version of a scene that’s not fully developed and use Comment to leave a note about thoughts for fleshing it out. Or maybe there’s a description or action that I know needs work. In one of my novels I described a character as having a “pretty face.” A critiquer rightly noted that this was vague—and it’s an example of a “conclusion” word.

When I came to that place as I was rewriting, I just wasn’t ready to deal with finding other language, so it was easy to highlight “pretty” and add this little note to myself: “better adjective/description—fine-boned, delicate features…” When I was good and ready, I took my time to do justice to the description.

The woman’s face emerged—oval shape, delicate features, and big eyes like you see in fashion models.

For me, that’s one of the best uses for comments—to annotate possibilities that occur to me when I don’t have the time or inclination to write them out. For example, in one scene the protagonist has left an intense but brief scene with his boss in which he quit his job. In the narrative I jumped ahead in time and simply wrote this:

In his office, Gabe slammed the few personal things he didn’t want to lose into his briefcase.

Then he left. Later, when skimming through the chapter, I had a nagging sense that the scene had ended too abruptly. So I highlighted “In his office” and added this comment: “consider having the boss following him into the hallway and finishing the confrontation.” I went back later and created a much stronger scene. Here’s the addition:

Gabe was twenty feet down the hallway before Lawrence’s voice attacked from behind. “You hold on there!”

Gabe stopped and turned. Lawrence advanced on him, his face flushed, his hands clenched into fists.

Lawrence came to a halt close enough for Gabe to smell the cigarette smoke in his breath. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Shackles lifted from Gabe’s mind, and he felt strong and free. “How about the right thing?”

Lawrence sucked in air as if Gabe had thrown a jab to his belly. His face reddened even more. “You’re one more word from being out of a job.”

Out of a job. But this job, with Lawrence fouling his work and yanking on a leash, would be hell. Gabe had been there before, suffering the daily insult of working for a lesser man. Last time it had cost him lots of sleep and the beginnings of an ulcer. He’d vowed to never suffer fools again.

One more word? Hell, he could do better than that. “Lawrence, don’t you have ass-kissing to do? I think the client’s going to need a long, deep pucker if you want to keep him happy.”

Like a fish, complete with glassy eyes, Lawrence opened and shut his mouth a couple of times. Then he spun and hurried back to the conference room. Gabe headed for his office, a flush of triumph thrumming through him.

There are different ways to add a comment. In Word 2000 and earlier, you highlight something where you want the comment to be, click Insert in the top menu, then click on Comment. A box will appear, you enter your note, then click Close. The comment becomes invisible until you want to see it, but yellow highlighting remains to show you where it is. You can insert a comment without highlighting anything, but I wouldn’t—later there’s no way to see where the comment is.

In Word 2002/XP, you insert comments in the same way. A comment balloon appears into which you type your comment. Annoyingly, the balloon stays there. To make it go away, go to View and click on Markup. Unfortunately, these versions of Word leave no highlighting to tell you where the comment is—you have to click on View/Markup.

In Word 2007, click on the Review tab in the ribbon and click on “New Comment.”

There are two ways in Word 2000 and earlier to later view a Comment note. My preference is to place my cursor over the yellow highlight, which causes the comment to appear in a pop-up box. Move the cursor away, it goes away. Right-click your mouse (click the right key if you have a 2-key mouse) and you get a menu that will let you edit or delete the comment. An alternative way to view a Comment is to click View on the top menu in Word. Then click Comments, and a box will appear with all the comments in them. You can scroll to get to the area you want to see. This is a handy way to review all of the reminders you’ve left in order to see what needs to be done.

In Word 2002/XP, click View and then Markup to see comments. To make them go away, return to View and click Markup. In Word 2007, go to the Review tab. The default may be to display all comments and changes. To turn them off, click the Show Markup link and deselect whatever you don’t want shown.

In WordPerfect, to insert a comment, click on Insert in the top menu bar, move your cursor to Comment, and click on Insert in the pop-up menu. To close the window that opens you have to click the X in the upper right corner. You can also navigate back and forth between your document and your comments with Window on the main menu bar.

WordPerfect adds small “word balloons” to the left margin of your document to indicate the presence of a comment. Click on the word balloon to read the comment. Right-click on the comment to edit or delete it.

First, keep the entire book manuscript in one electronic file—it’s a huge time-saver. I know writers who use a separate file on their computer for each chapter of their book. Each of my novels is in one file—the whole thing. It would drive me nuts to have to open up, let’s say, a file for chapter 9 in order to check on information I needed for a scene in chapter 22—for example, maybe I need to make sure where I stashed a clue back in chapter 9 that now needs to be discovered in 22.

A file-per-chapter writer friend didn’t see how I could do it. The key is using bookmarks to navigate quickly and easily around a complete novel manuscript.

With the Microsoft Word and WordPerfect Bookmark tools, wherever you are in a manuscript you can insert a bookmark and easily come back to it from any other place in the manuscript. I used it frequently in putting this book together to jump from where I was writing to a previous section to check on something in another section. I’d insert the letter “a” as a bookmark where I was, go to where I needed to go, and then just use the bookmark to hop back. I use “a” because it comes up at the top of the bookmark list. And you can use it over and over—when I needed to do the same thing further on in the manuscript, the “a” was at the top of the list and it was simple to just select it, click “insert,” and have the “a” bookmark located in the new place.

Another use for bookmarks is when you’re deep into rewriting or polishing your book and it’s time to hang up your brain for the night, your eyes having become loose in their sockets. If you’re on, let’s say, line 16 on page 174 out of 263, the quick way to return to that exact spot is insert a bookmark—the letter “a” will do, or perhaps “here,” or whatever is easiest—save the file, and shut down. Next day, you can return to the exact spot you left off with a couple of keystrokes.

In Word you click Insert; click Bookmark; type in a letter or word in the Bookmark name box, then click the Add button. For some reason, you can’t use words separated by spaces—which leads me to sometimes insert bookmarks such as “describebarn” or “describe-barn” so I’ll know what it’s about. In WordPerfect, you click Tools, then Bookmark, then Create, which lets you type in a name and say OK.

When you next open your document, to go to a bookmark you type control+g (PC) or apple+g (Mac), select Bookmark in the dialogue box that pops up, select the bookmark you want (there’s a little arrow button to show a list of all bookmarks), click okay, and you’re there.

Many uses

Let’s say that you’re really struggling with a passage, or maybe just chugging through the narrative, laying track, and you know what you’ve just written will need more thought. You can bookmark it and move on, knowing you can return with ease. Using bookmarks, I will revisit material that needs honing a number of times until I’m satisfied with it. With a bookmark, it’s easy to go back and keep at it; without a bookmark, I suspect it would get far fewer visits and less thought.

Here’s another one: deep into the umpteenth rewrite of a novel, it came to me that I needed to add a key visual and emotional element to a character’s scenes in several places in the story. First, I inserted bookmarks at each scene where the new material was to be added (necklace1, necklace2, necklace3, etc.). Later, I jumped easily from one spot to another to make sure I had kept things consistent yet varied and had done all I needed to make the new material blend with the old. Because my first drafts tend to be on the lean side, bookmarking those additional bits of narrative enabled me to visit them after they’d cooled a little to see if they needed more work.

Because you can give each bookmark a different handle, another handy use is the ability to check back to important passages. This is especially useful for continuity checks. Let’s say that early in the novel you created a detailed description of a room, and the things in that room are important to your story when they come up again. Put a bookmark there (“the-murder” or “crimescene” or some such) and it’s easy to refer back and keep later references to that place accurate. This could be darned handy for clues in a mystery novel.

Bookmark the first page of each chapter to hop to one instantly. If you know you had Heather shoot the green bunny in chapter 4 but can’t quite remember the sequence of events when you’re referring to the shooting in chapter 16, it’s easy to check.

Marking a passage for later use or change is another bookmark use. In one of my novels, I planned to move the description I’d written for a character to an earlier chapter during the rewrite. I bookmarked that passage so that when I got to the new description point in the rewrite, I could jump there, cut the description from its page, then jump back to where I was (because I inserted a “here” bookmark before I left that point) and paste it in. No hunting, no searching for keyword strings, etc.

We’re reaching the end of my of my book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells. There’s just this plus a couple of useful word processor tips to come. I hope they’ve been useful. Here is “Creating distance for better self-editing.”

You’ve just spent some time editing the work of other writers, and perhaps found it easy to spot shortcomings. But if you’re like most of us, it’s far more difficult to see your own shortcomings with any clarity, if at all.

To self-edit with any success, create distance from your work to somehow separate your reading from your intimate knowledge of your vision so that the words alone do the work. With distance, it falls on the writing to evoke scenes no longer fresh in your mind. Not so amazingly, distance reveals holes in the pictures. And flat writing becomes visible for the first time, those lazy word choices or adverbs that got you through the task of getting the story down but don’t do diddly-squat to create the reader experience you need to provoke.

Once done with a draft, try not to go back for at least a month, though six weeks is better. However, unless I have other projects interesting enough to distract me, I find that very difficult to do. A few days go by and then, like a constant itch that needs scratching, I open the file and start picking. Compulsive, I know, but I don’t see how anyone could write an entire novel without a healthy dose of compulsive behavior to keep giving the wheel a turn when you have a tough day.

So I needed to find other ways to get around the fact that I refused to allow my book adequate time to chill. Here are some that might work for you.

You could do as George Carlin once talked of doing in the last stages of polishing his material—smoke a little pot. Failing that, what?

If you’ve been working exclusively onscreen, create a printout and go through a hard copy. That’s a must at some time anyway, and it can gain you a little psychological distance.

Read it aloud to yourself. For me, this reveals clumsy structure; unwanted repetitions and echoes; missing information; too much information; or other flaws. I don’t do this often enough, probably because I simply forget to.

Another technique that works for me is to reformat the narrative to look more like that in a book. Here are ways to do that using Microsoft Word (this is doable in WordPerfect as well).

1. Change the font

If you’re using Courier, it’ll never look like a book. Times New Roman is closer in appearance to a book’s text, but it’s a narrow newspaper font seldom used in a book. And it would be better to eye a different font anyway.

To change the font, type Ctrl+a (or Apple+a with a Mac). This should select all the text. Then go to the font window in your toolbar and change it to one of the book-style fonts: Garamond or Palatino or Georgia, if you have them. If you don’t, Times New Roman will do. Font size: 12.

Author M.J. Rose, The Halo Effect, prints her manuscript out in a different font and then takes it somewhere else to read—2 or 3 hours a day at a library, or on a train from Connecticut to Boston and back all in one day. I like that idea—your words have to overcome unaccustomed distractions. And a different environment can make you see things in different ways.

2. Make the text even more look book-like.

While you’ve still got everything selected (or do Ctrl+a again to select all), change the spacing to be more book-like as well, neither double nor single spacing. Click Format>Paragraph. In the Line Spacing box, use the drop-down menu to select Multiple. Then, in the “At:” box next to it, type 1.1 or 1.2 and click OK. Adjust to taste. Another way to do it is use point size. Choose “Exactly” and enter in a larger point size. For 12-point type, 15 will give you a more open, book-like feel than single spacing. But you’re not done yet.

Change the margins to create a bookish column of text on the page with about 10-15 words in a line. The margins I’ve found helpful are: top, 1”; bottom, 1”; left and right, 1.7”. This will give you a very different look.

3. Make it look like a book

It’s fun to really go all the way and see how it would look book-style by doing this:

1. Change the page size. Click File>Page setup and go to the Paper size tab. Change the paper size to Custom and type in 5.5” for width and 8.5” for height. Or 6” by 9”.

2. Now change the margins: top, .66”; bottom, left, and right to .6”.

3. Change the font and spacing as noted above. Might try a smaller font size, 11.5 or 11, depending on the font.

4. Justify the margins. Select all the text (Ctrl+a). Click Format>Paragraph. On the Indents and Spacing tab, go to the Alignment box, click the arrow to show the menu, and choose Justified. Then click OK.

I think you’ll find that the reformatted narrative reads differently, either onscreen or in a printout. I’ve even printed out a book on 5.5” by 8.5” paper, using both sides of the paper and formatting just like a book (headers, page numbers, justified margins, font, spacing, etc.), and had it tape-bound at Kinko’s, which yielded something very much like a perfect-bound trade paperback. Now, that’s fun to hold in your hands—your book as a real book! It’s educational, too.

Have trouble working in standard manuscript format?

These ideas on creating distance solved a problem I’ve never had for a writer named Janine. She wrote this after discovering my tip on reformatting.

I have a HUGE problem working in traditional manuscript format (12 pt courier double spaced ragged right margin etc.) I find it very distracting and get lost easily. I end up with these ENORMOUS drafts that are too intimidating to revise.

I decided I was just going to set up my working draft like a book page and “write the book” while I do the draft. It’s an amazingly powerful tool. I know right where I am in the story. No more guessing. I know that when I’m finally done I’ll have to reformat it for submission but hey, who cares? At least this way I might get a finished draft TO submit. Before, it was looking kind of hopeless.

What’s wrong with that bit of narrative? Well, I’m not about to be able to sip my coffee and type simultaneously unless I’ve got three hands. Oh, I guess it’s possible—if I were sipping my coffee through a straw while typing. But who does that?

We’re about to pick at a nit here—the misuse of the “as” construction in narratives.

I suspect you’ve seen a phrase such as the example above, and it may not have struck you that something was awry. When you examine it, though, it describes a highly improbable event.

Y’see, in this situation “as” means simultaneously. Often I see writers use “as” when they should be using “when,” or sometimes “after.”

In the opening example, it should be something like:

I sipped my coffee, and then I typed, “Watch your as.”

Following are examples collected from samples and manuscripts I’ve received.

Morgan collapsed onto the sofa as his knees gave way.

To my mind, the collapse was the result of his knees giving way. He wouldn’t collapse as they gave way because they haven’t finished giving way, and so are not “collapsible.” The fix here is to use “when” (after would also work):

Morgan collapsed onto the sofa when his knees gave way.

What about this one?

As I flipped the switch the kitchen was flooded with light and I saw Portia on the floor.

You see it coming, don’t you? While I’m at it, I’ll get rid of a “was.”

When I flipped the light switch, light flooded the kitchen and I saw Portia on the floor.

That was a clear case of “when” because light would not flood the kitchen until after the switch was flipped. With “as,” the switch could be anywhere in the process of completing the circuit, including before it’s completed.

“As” often ignores a stimulus and response scenario.

George stiffened as the man swore a solemn oath.

I see the stiffening as a reaction to the nature (and content) of the oath, not the act of swearing. How would George know it was solemn until it was spoken? An adjustment:

The man swore a solemn oath. George stiffened.

Some uses of “as” are downright sloppy:

Lee jokes as he swigs from his bottle.

Have you ever tried telling a joke while simultaneously taking a swig from a bottle? If that’s your habit, remind me not to buy you a drink. How it might be written:

Lee swigs from his bottle and then jokes.

From a romance:

As their eyes met her knees turned to butter.

Nope, the buttery knees were a reaction to the meeting of their gazes (not eyes). “When” tells you the sequence of events.

When their gazes met, her knees turned to butter.

From horror:

Chills ran down Tim’s spine as he realized that evil was close to his son.

Once again, there’s a cause-and-effect time sequence necessary here, to my way of thinking. Doesn’t it seem logical that the chills are caused by the realization, and thus can’t be running anywhere until after the realization?

When Tim realized that evil was close to his son, chills ran down his spine.

Side note: I would suggest to the writer that “ran down his spine” is hackneyed, if not clichéd, and to look for a fresh way to describe the reaction.

Here’s one from an accomplished writer:

Instinct saved my face from being slashed as I ducked away at the last second.

Once again, we’re dealing with a linear cause and effect. Seems to me that his instincts caused the ducking, and therefore had to precede it. The instinctive motivation to move and the movement itself can’t be simultaneous. Here’s one way to do it with a semi-colon:

Instinct saved my face from being slashed; I ducked away at the last second.

Again, “when” seems to me to be the more accurate word. The squirrels react to the sound of the tires hitting the gravel, which can only be generated when they hit, and then the squirrels hear it.

An ambivalent usage:

He quivered as her feminine odor wafted into his nostrils.

This one is borderline. He could certainly do the quivering as the odor wafted in, but the writer’s clear intent was to let the reader know that the odor caused the quiver. I think it would have created a more logical sense of what was happening with:

He quivered when her feminine odor wafted into his nostrils.

There are, of course, times when the “as” construction serves a narrative well by describing things that can, and should, happen simultaneously. For example,

Marcie laughed as she swung Amy back and forth.

As he lathered his face, he debated whether to wear a suit or not.

She gnawed her lip in frustration as she watched him leave.

Hmm. As I look at these four examples, I find myself thinking that maybe “while” would serve better than “as” in some of them.

I suggest (and I’ve done this with my own work) doing a search for “as” (remember to select “Find whole words only” or it’ll drive you crazy) and see if your usage truly makes sense. Or if perhaps “while” is a better alternative, or what you really need is a “when” or an “after.”

Today and tomorrow (May 16th & 17th) I’ll be guesting on Patricia Bates’s blog, Of Ink and Quille. There’s a Q&A on Monday, and I’ll be stopping in throughout Monday and Tuesday to answer any questions that readers submit.

An Internet radio interview is set for Thursday, May 19, on the subject of my novel, We the Enemy. It will happen on The New American Dream Radio Show. The show starts at 7:45 pm Eastern time and the guest interview comes about a half hour into the show. They archive the show in case the timing isn’t good for you.

Look for the listen live link.

There is a menu item, shows; the main page has downloadable file links, and each show has its own archive page underneath that menu as a dropdown.

In hopes of inciting your interest, here’s a new reader review from an Amazon.com.

First of all We the Enemy is an entertaining conflicted hero, action novel. On that level it is similar to many Grisham, Balducci or other stories, an entertaining, compelling read. If it were only that it would be one of many books that allow us a few hours in a world unlike our own that we visit to sample different lives or just escape our own.

However, there is much more going on here. Into into his dark view of what our society could look like not long from now the author weaves ideas about re-interpreted constitutional rights that make it difficult for these rights to be ignored, twisted or used for ill. It is these ideas that make this book stand out. Not just another action story but a good story with compelling notions that stick in the mind. These ideas seem so reasonable (and yet not impossibly Utopian) that they keep coming back, teasing you to make you wonder why they couldn't be tried.

It's a good story full of interesting characters with some of the most interesting ideas of justice around. I recommend it.

It seems to me that most of the time these phrases are about as useful as your appendix. They are comfortable-feeling collections of words that describe a negative, an absence. But I think they are frequently lazy writing. They are a missed opportunity to write for effect.

If whatever it is the story is doing without isn’t there, why bring it up? You, the writer, control absolutely everything the character and the reader experience. If you don’t put something into the narrative, it doesn’t exist, does it? So why tell the reader that what isn’t there isn’t there? Actually, in most cases the writer intends meaning, it’s just that using “without” can leave the reader missing the intended sense of what’s happening.

Here are some examples, including a few that come from samples I’ve received.

Without a sound

He crossed the room without a sound.

You, the author, control what the reader “hears.” If you don’t supply a sound, there is none. In my view, here “without a sound” is redundant. Do you hear anything if the narrative says this?

He crossed the room.

Nope. In this case the author probably wanted to indicate the stealthy nature of his movement. If so, don’t do it with an absence, do it with intent.

Stepping lightly to make no sound, he crossed the room.

Or why not show rather than tell? For example:

He removed his shoes and tiptoed across the room in his socks.

Don’t you automatically imagine his movement as being silent?

Without a glance

She picked up her bag and walked off without a backward glance.

Okay, this hints at something going on in the character, but only hints. Wouldn’t it be better, from a characterization point of view, to do something such as:

She picked up her bag and walked off, resisting the urge to look back, to see his face one more time.

Without a thought

She made her decision without a second thought.

Sure, you’ll tell me that the writer is trying to characterize here, that perhaps the character is impulsive. But why do it with an absence? Could it be more positively stated? For example:

She plunged ahead and made her decision.

Without a word

Alex stepped into the room without a word.

So he left it outside the room? Will he have go back and get it if he needs it? Which word? Rather than raise all these questions in the minds of astute readers, why not just:

Alex stepped into the room.

Here’s another “without a word”:

“Let’s go,” she breathed, excited and a little frightened. Without a word, they turned as one to go.

I think it’s the “without a word” phrase that seems least likely to contribute. If you, the writer, don’t put any words on the page for the character to say, then they weren’t said.

I can see, perhaps, a need to characterize an action. I think the following attempts to do that:

Jessica scooped the mug up and marched off without a word.

But it could do more if it were something like:

Jessica bit back a retort, scooped up the mug, and marched off.

There are times “without” is useful, of course. From a sample:

She felt a twinge of regret that she would be leaving Loren without a word of goodbye.

BTW, I try to avoid using “felt.” I think the above would be stronger if it were:

She regretted that she would be leaving Loren without a word of goodbye.

To be fair about this, I searched my own work for “without a.” I found these in the first novel:

She hung up without a goodbye, which suited him fine.

This seems to work because the absence of expected behavior is what the character notices.

He sagged and left without a look back.

Here the “without a look back” got cut.

In novel number two I found a “without a glance back.” I think it should be removed, although I was tempted. . .

I also found two uses of “without a word” that I immediately cut.

The third novel:

Then Dudley said, without an ounce of his usual sarcasm, “I’m sure it is, pardner.”

Seems to me the phrase works here to characterize the speech. If I took it out, you wouldn’t get the tone, and it is the absence of sarcasm that counts. I think the construction also suggests that the recipient of this speech (the POV character) expects sarcasm from Dudley.

I think that there are times when the absence of something can be meaningful. In the following example, someone is running a horse (Dusty) through a pasture.

Ten feet from the gully’s edge, without a hint of warning, Dusty turned at a right angle and raced away from the trench.

Ordinarily, a horse’s behavior sends signals to the rider, especially about a significant change in direction. Mentioning the absence here lets us know that what happens next is totally unexpected.

Jesse left the saddle and flew straight ahead, riding air.

Or how about this:

A cigarette without a light is as useless as a kiss without a pucker.

When I searched novel number four, I found no instances of “without a.” Good for me.

This writing thing is a learning curve that all of us climb, phrase by phrase. But it’s interesting, isn’t it?

A common locution that I see in manuscripts (and published novels) is “started to.” Also, “began to.” While there are times when those expressions are appropriate, they aren’t nearly as frequent as some writers seem to feel.

When/if you use “started to” and “began to” in your narrative, spend a moment and think about what the words really mean. Another usage that tangles meaning is “with.” I’ll get to that later. Here are some examples of “started to” drawn from a number of submissions.

When we started to get repeat responses to stimuli, we changed the system.

This says that the two things happened simultaneously, although they couldn’t have; they didn’t change the system until after the repeat responses occurred. Rewrite:

After we got repeat responses to the stimuli, we changed the system.

What about this one?

She turned away and started to laugh.

What is the start of a laugh? “H—” and then silence? No, in this narrative, the character laughed. Rewrite:

She turned away and laughed.

Tears make an appearance:

Her tears started to flow.

So they appeared in the corners of her eyes and then just sat there? Nope, if they flowed at all, they rolled on down her cheeks. Rewrite:

Her tears flowed.

Getting a character moving:

Larry slid from his stool and started to follow the beggar.

So did Larry get his feet on the floor, lift a foot, and then stop? Take a step or two and stop? No, he followed the beggar. See how much crisper it is to say:

Larry slid from his stool and followed the beggar.

Can an action be partial?

He started to laugh but stopped short when he saw how angry she was.

Another “H—” here? Wouldn’t this create a better picture of what might really happen?

He laughed, but then stopped when he saw her anger.

What about thoughts?

His mind started to whirl with crazy ideas.

So what’s the idea here? His mind starts, like a song beginning, and then, “r-r-r-r,” dies out? Not likely.

His mind whirled with crazy ideas.

Be careful of continuity.

She started to sob and Steve held the weeping child in his arms.

Okay, if she only starts (which can mean that she stops), then how come she’s weeping when she gets into Steve’s embrace? Rewrite:

She sobbed, and Steve held the weeping child in his arms.

Actually, written this way, “weeping” isn’t needed.

She sobbed and Steve held the child in his arms.

A confusing mix of actions:

She began to back away when a faint movement in the yard stopped her.

A really confusing set of words for me. She was backing and a movement stopped her? Doesn’t seem possible. Rewrite:

She backed away, but then stopped at the sight of movement in the yard.

Sometimes, though, “started” is right.

She stopped him when he started to rise to his feet.

This one is okay because the action was interrupted.

Do without the “with” redux

In the Dialogue section I bemoaned saying things with “with,” but there’s another way in which “with” can befuddle your narrative—when it adds things together nonsensically. When you think about what the words really mean, there are times when “with” is the wrong word—and it’s your job to think about what words really mean.

He watched her with a satisfied smile.

So his teeth are capable of vision? Maybe, in a sci-fi adventure, but most of us use our eyes for this sort of thing. Also, this is telling—what does a “satisfied smile” look like? Rewrite:

He watched her and smiled, satisfied.

This one has one heck of a dog.

The dog started to chase the sheep with a snarl.

A double whammy: first the “started to,” and then how did the dog hold the snarl with which he chased the sheep? In his teeth? How does one use a snarl in a chase, anyway? Rewrite:

The dog snarled and then chased the sheep.

Misuse of roaring.

With a roar of encouragement, the watchers pushed him back into the fight.

So how did they get a grip on the roar in order to push with it? Aren’t those things slippery? Rewrite:

The watchers roared encouragement and pushed him back into the fight.

A tragic use of “with.”

She ran into his arms with a strangled sob.

Where did she get the strangled sob? Who strangled the poor thing?

On the other hand, sometimes I could use one of these.

Margaret straightened her back with a groan.

I never thought to use a groan to straighten my back. Rewrite:

Margaret groaned when she straightened her back.

A touching use of “with.”

He touched it with a worried expression.

So did he place his face against it? Rewrite:

He touched it, his worry shown by his expression.

Do a search for “started to” and “began to” and “with” and see if you find any of these potential befuddlements lurking in your narrative.

It’s a cliché, it’s a truth: Every word counts. Reading and imagining and experiencing your narrative is a cumulative process. Meanings and usage add up, bit by bit, into gestalts that insert what’s happening to the character into your reader’s mind.

Weak words fail to deliver vivid pictures and actions—do you want that? Waste words take up space and slow the pace—and are among the first discouraging things a professional spots. Even worse, wrong words, words used in an incorrect way, confuse your reader and take them out of the story, not to mention costing you credibility and suspension of belief. Yet the manuscripts of novice writers are filled with just that. Here are some of the worst offenders.

-ing

Let’s start with half a word. “Inging,” over-use of the present participle, frequently slows pace and mushes meaning. More often than not, “ings” should be “eds” for crisp writing.

She was polishing her glasses as she searched for the right words. I think this is passive and slow to create a picture in the reader’s mind. Much more to the point, and quicker to create a picture, is:

She polished her glasses as she searched for the right words.

Examples from samples I’ve received:

The rain was turning into snow as they drove. (turned)

Dylan was circling the cabin. (circled)

Joanne was hoping that she would get to see her family skiing. (hoped, ski)

Bob was getting more and more nervous. (grew)

“No,” the heavy woman said, rummaging through the shopping bag she was carrying. (carried)

Lulu was feeling tipsy. (felt)

There are times, though, when “ing” (for me) helps convey an ongoing process. For example, consider “Thinking of his face, she hesitated.” versus “She thought of his face and hesitated.” For me the first version puts a thoughtful look on the character’s face and creates a pause in whatever she’s doing, and the second version is just action.

some

A waste word, a verbal habit something like the “uh” many people use in speech. A few examples (I almost said “some,” but that was so vague); see how cutting the “somes” costs nothing yet makes the sentence crisper.

Married women always wore some bangles around both their wrists.

Do you have some pressing business?

My big band attained some modest local fame and national press.

There was some movement as the crocodiles attempted to steer clear.

She had some packing to do.

Some tantalizing smells were wafting towards them from across the river. (and let’s change were wafting to wafted)

He had to have some new tires installed.

very

Another waste word.

William was one of very(the) few who knew. (not needed)

I want the very best students. (redundant—best is best)

Mr. Simpson has been very eager to meet you. (there are no degrees of eagerness—redundant)

. . .in the very coldest part of winter. (redundant—coldest is coldest)

They were very hungry. (starving or famished are more specific, more effective)

During lunch she becomes very quiet. (redundant—quiet is quiet)

of

In my first novel a reader picked up on a habit I had of overusing “of” as in, “He emptied his pot of coffee.” I used my word processor’s search tool to hunt for “of” and found many that I could change to either a possessive or use an adjective, e.g., “He emptied his coffee pot.” This may seem mindlessly simple to you, but I found lots of places to tighten my narrative, which helped with pace and clarity.

eyes

This is an example of improper usage. Many writers use “eyes” when what they really mean is gaze, or glance, or stare. Some examples in which I take the usage to the next logical step:

Her eyes were on the floor. (Luckily, no one stepped on them.)

His blue eyes bored into her. (And then blood gushed from the two holes in her belly.)

She felt the woman’s eyes searching for her. (It tickled when they slid across her face.)

His tired eyes land on me as he glances around the room. (Then they drop to the floor and roll under the couch.)

My eyes follow the headlights. (I ignore the wrenching pain when they leave their sockets.)

Roger kept his eyes on the road. (He realized his mistake when the ice cream truck ran over them.)

Fire up your word processor, open your manuscript, launch the search tool, and type these weak, wasted, or wrong words in the Find what: box and go hunting for opportunities to make your narrative stronger and sharper.

Here’s a simple-minded example of one of the reasons adverbs can be the bane of writing for effect. This is fundamental stuff, and I don’t mean to insult you…I just want to contrast effect to info. A story starts with this:

Jimmy walked slowly across the cluttered room.

Simple information. I see, fuzzily, a guy walking. Not very fast (but I can’t really picture it). There’s stuff in the room (but who knows what).

The effect? Not much. No clear picture comes to mind. First thing to do: ditch the verb/adverb combo and choose a verb that evokes a picture, at the least, and at best characterizes the action. If, for example, your story is suspense, then how about…

Jimmy crept across the cluttered room.

Better. Here are other possibilities, depending on the story:

In a fight scene, Jimmy would have lunged across the room.

If Jimmy is a dancer, then he glided.

Make Jimmy a burglar and he skulked.

If Jimmy is in no hurry, then he ambled.

If Jimmy is in a hurry, then he dashed.

If Jimmy has been over-served at a bar, then he weaved. Or maybe he tottered, or staggered, or lurched, or, my personal favorite, sloshed.

Each of those verbs evokes a picture of Jimmy’s body moving in specific ways. They are “visual” verbs that created a specific effect in your mind. Stimulus > response.

There’s another bit of lazy writing in the example sentence—the adjective “cluttered.” It did nothing to create a picture. At the very least, we should see what the room was cluttered with, e.g.:

Jimmy crept across a room cluttered with shrunken heads.

Ooooo. See how specificity stirs up story questions? Don’t you want more? What about the room? Is it dark? Any smells? Sounds? Is anyone else there? What about characterization? Put on Jimmy’s skin and…

He was glad that the light of his candle was dim—all those tiny faces staring up at him were entirely too creepy. He set a foot down and winced at a crunch. He froze, listening for sounds of renewed pursuit. But only the scurrying of rats troubled the air, musty with the dust of the dead.

Rats?

Oh, fine.

Let’s get back to adverbs. There’s a reason adverbs rob you of effect.

Adverbs are telling

I believe that adverbs that modify action verbs are merely a form of telling. They are abstractions of action, pallid substitutes for the real thing, mere stand-ins. As a result, they rarely give the reader much of an experience. For example, one of my clients wrote,

She grinned mischievously.

Now, the average reader would take that in, plug in some sort of vague image, keep on rolling and never realize she had been cheated—but she was. There’s a much more lively and concrete picture to be created in the reader’s mind. For example:

She grinned, mischief sparking in her eyes.

In the original, because you have to interpret “mischievously” (what, exactly, is that?) the effect is to evoke an unsure image of a grin. In the second, you see a face in action: lips curve, you see a grin, you see eyes, you see playful activity behind those eyes. All that from four extra words chosen for effect. Or, hey, what about something like this…

She grinned like a fox that had just found the keys to the henhouse.

The third example goes beyond word choice to tap into meaning and characterization beyond a simple visual.

Watch out for adverbs in dialogue tags

Many writers use adverbs to explain dialogue rather than show how the dialogue is delivered. For example:

“This is my dialogue,” he said hesitantly.

That’s lazy use of an adverb. You could say something like. . .

He hesitated, then said, “This is my dialogue.”

But that’s not precisely what “said hesitantly” means, is it? There would be a hesitation in there somewhere. Wouldn’t it be more effective if we dramatized the hesitation so the reader experienced it rather than read about it? For instance, let’s show it this way:

“This. . .” He swallowed and glanced at her face. “. . . is my dialogue.”

Go on an adverb hunt and replace them with the action they only hint at and you’ll be writing for effect.

But not all adverbs are bad guys

I was reviewing one of my manuscripts the other day and spotted, gasp, an adverb. Here’s the sentence:

She saw Murphy, like a big, round boulder parting a stream of girly secretaries cramming in a buzz of noontime shopping—except this boulder stared blatantly at their bobbing chests as they passed.

“Stared blatantly?” Damn. Another case of making an adverb try to do the work of real description. To be fair, this was from my first novel, written several years ago, on the lower slopes of my learning curve.

In this case the answer lay, as usual, in the verb. I swapped out “stared blatantly” for “leered.” Much better, giving a clear picture with fewer words. While I was at it, I tightened the sentence a little, too:

She saw Murphy, like a big, round boulder parting a stream of girly secretaries cramming in a buzz of noontime shopping, leering at their bobbing chests.

And then I came upon a pair of adverbs in one sentence…

He found Emmaline to be annoyingly cheerful but pleasingly proficient.

But these adverbs worked for me. Wait, I thought, how come they seem right when I’ve preached loud and long to avoid adverbs? Then I noticed that these modified adjectives rather than verbs.

Good cholesterol and bad cholesterol?

There was a time when we believed that all cholesterol was bad. Then we learned that there is good cholesterol and bad cholesterol.

Well, I changed my position that all adverbs are suspect, if not bad. I think there are “good” adverbs, the ones that add just the right flavor to an adjective, enhancing it with a more complete shade of meaning.

Consider the sentence describing Emmaline. Could I have achieved what I wanted, which was to give insight into one character’s feeling and attitudes toward another, without the adverbs?

He found Emmaline to be cheerful but proficient.

Nope. I’ve lost how the viewpoint character feels about Emmaline’s personality.

I went on a search for other adverbs (using Microsoft Word’s Find tool to locate “ly” in words).

Her fair cheeks fetchingly reddened by the cold, she looked no older than a teenager.

Yep, for me this works as well. It would have been okay to write. . .

Her fair cheeks reddened by the cold, she looked no older than a teenager.

. . .and you would have gotten a picture. But take “fetchingly” out and you lose the point-of-view character’s reaction to the girl’s cheeks. With the addition of the adverb to this adjective, you also get the character’s experience, i.e. his emotional reaction to the appearance he sees—fetching, attractive.

The pattern I was discovering seemed to be that adverbs are a positive addition when coupled to adjectives in order to add a point-of-view character’s nuance to what would otherwise be simple description. Another instance from the same manuscript:

He loved the Staffordshire blue-and-white rose pattern, beautifully detailed and botanically accurate right down to the thorns on the stems.

Take “beautifully” and “botanically” out of that sentence and I think it loses both meaning and flavor. Once more:

She changed her disguise to the queenly dignity of a white-haired society matron she’d met in Brussels.

Now, to “show” without the adverb would have required something like this:

She changed her disguise to that of a dignified, white-haired society matron with the manner of a queen, whom she’d met in Brussels.

Not as effective, is it?

Here’s an example taken from a client’s manuscript of a good adverb and bad adverb in the same sentence:

A young waiter with carefully streaked hair smiled suggestively at her.

For me, the first adverb expands the picture of the waiter’s hair by giving a hint of precision in the arrangement of the streaks, which tells me something about him as well. But I’d like to see the second adverb replaced with something more truly pictorial.

When you go hunting for adverbs, it’s when they modify action that you should consider looking for a better verb to do the job, and when they amplify adjectives that you may find adverbs to be good cholesterol.